Mother

I bet that will look really nice Little Sister.  Nice and usable too.

Necie,  I saw a super way to grow hops. They were letting them climb cord they had strung from the overhang of the house and anchored in the ground.  The plants helped shade the house and hen they were done growing it was an easy matter to cut them down to clean them out before winter.  I’ve always grown them on trellis but clean up was difficult.  

49 minutes ago, Annarchy said:

Safe in TX. Amen

Amen 🙏

9 hours ago, Jeepers said:

bones, throw them away

Before making broth from them!!!!          
 

  Sorry, couldn’t help myself but tease a little.   I do get the texture thing. I don’t have it but others in the family do and it really is a problem for them.  I am surprised you don’t make and can broth from the bones though.  It is a wonderful addition to soups if for nothing else.  

Mother isn’t right, Jeepers. Mother is just glad you understood I was coming from a place of caring.  

I love Gene Stratton Porter. Especially Freckles.  And Bess Streeter Aldrich’s pioneer novels are set in the Midwest so are very dear to my heart. 

 Jeepers,  STOP already!!!    No….those things do NOT need to be done.   Your stuff moved, yes, but it is the first day of spring and you need to make up your mind that you ARE moving to Indiana.  You are just prolonging the move.  Not unusual for those of us who have lived a LONG time in a place.  Believe me, as one who has been there done that, it is easier to just get on with choosing and working with a realtor. Do only what THEY suggest you do and not even that if it’s going to be costly. 
 

Now, here’s something you CAN do. It’s cheap and it really does sell.  The best advice I ever got for selling a house (we have sold several) was to have it smell homey.  Our realtor recommended that right before someone was to come look at the place that I bake bread or cookies.  It doesn’t have to be for them to eat.  You are looking for the smell. I always made my own bread so I used that but the realtor suggested even brown and serve rolls, frozen bread dough, or refrigerated cookie dough worked fine too. Slice and bake two or three.  I have been told by new owners that it was that smell that made them want to buy. 
 

The realtor also said it would be better if we weren’t there when people came to look but I found that it worked better if I greeted them at the door with a smiling welcome.  I never tried to make a sales pitch but was careful to answer any questions and even to point out LITTLE things like having no curtains in the bedrooms or dining room. Give them the chance to imagine their own things there.   It is the honesty behind your words that counts. Even telling them a tiny bit about why you are selling, like to be closer to your GS as you age shows them why the house is being sold.  Do not tell them about the flood.  Let the realtor handle that part. 

Like the others, I don’t suggest you do ANY landscaping.  Just make sure it is mowed and trimmed neatly.  A blank pallet so to speak. IF you are with them while they are looking at the yard you could tell them very briefly what you always wanted to do with it.  Like have a flower bed here or a small veggie garden there.  Nothing big. It gets them to thinking about what THEY would do with it. 
 

Some realtors are.very good at that sort of things but some come across so fake and like they are repeating a learned speech.  Some realtors will insist you don’t be there when the house is shown. If you are more comfortable with that then by all means plan to be somewhere else with the lingering baking smell behind of course….Personally I always insisted on meeting the clients at the door and promised I would leave them with the realtor after that if necessary.  It makes the house feel warm rather than empty, even if it is.
 

Jeepers, don’t make this any harder on you than you’ve already had.  You are having a lot of health issues and fretting about it being perfect will only make that worse. You don’t need that. What you need is to be near family, to be building your OWN dream in your new house, with the money going towards making YOU happy; to be looking forward to a healthier lifestyle even if it’s just lazing around and playing with GS because there’s no rush to get things done.  I know you are trying to get the most money you can for the house but if you put less money into it you will have just that much more to spend on your dream.  It truly isn’t what you put into the house now that will sell it.  You have everything that counts in place, the expensive things,  You have  made it so that a perspective new owner can dream their dreams.   Give them that chance. 
 

Worried about you Jeepers. Give yourself a break…..  
 

DH and I are reading Free Falling, the first book (2012) in the series The Irish End Games.  The author, Susan Kiernan Lewis, has written 12 books so far and I have the first three on my Kindle. This one is an apocalyptic novel but is very tame as far as survival novels go. It has a lot of inconsistencies that even DH picked up on.  We are hoping that it being the first and written many years ago the books I’ll get better.  
 

We are also listening to a series of short Miss Marple stories by Agatha Christie on You Tube.  Our half hour, mind stimulating, solve the mystery, exercise for the day.  We are enjoying them. 
 

I am also revisiting Urban Homesteading by Dion Rosser.  
 

Euphrysne, I used to read the way you do.  My goals were lower (2 or 3 hundred) as I had three little ones and homesteaded full time as well.  Many is the night I sat reading while the canner finished or I was making cheese.  I loved reading, still do. But at one point I had strained my eyes so badly I was forced to take a break from using my eyes so severely. I was given special dark glasses to lesson the impact.  That’s when I discovered audio books.  That was a long time ago when you could get a prescription to be involved in a program that you could get free audio books on loan.  I could also get books on cassettes at the library. I was in seventh heaven.   I could work and ‘read’ at the same time.    I eventually went back to reading books again but now, with the advent of cataracts, I’m ever grateful for the ease of finding audio books free online.  Never take your eyes for granite. 🤓

That is beautiful, Annarchy!  Thanks for sharing.  

1 hour ago, euphrasyne said:

Everyone has a thing.  The key is to know and own your things. 

Well said, Euphrasyne.     👍. 

9 minutes ago, Momo said:

My old one couldn't handle the bare ground but maybe this new one can

I recognize that issue.  My portable one definitely doesn’t work as it’s only about three inches off the ground.  It doesn’t even take door sills well. My wheelchair supposedly can but that’s what catapulted me out.  My OLD scooter is fairly good and what I use in the yard but don’t put a mole hole or soft ground in front of it.    Thankfully my GS built the thirty foot deck with deck box planters and found some big long rubber mats (actually farm machinery belts) to lay down for paths.  They work great for me to get to one section of the big plastic mineral tub planters.  
 

Momo, I sure hope your new one will get you out and about more. 

Euphrasyne,  I understand.   I also lost an Aunt this last week.  She was 98 but that doesn’t make it any easier to handle the loss.  

Good for you, Becca_Anne.  I’m direct seeding or buying/ordering my plants this year.  

Our DGD does child led weaning.  She has four kids, ages 8 to 18 months or so and has nursed continuously since the oldest was born, not to mention donating a huge amount of breast milk for others. We have several Granddaughters who nursed their babies and never worried about weaning even when they worked full time. They let the kids decide when.  I myself nursed my youngest son for seventeen months with his pediatrician’s encouragement because he had a lot of allergies.  It sure beats buying and mixing formula and washing bottles. 
 

I was wondering if you are trying to feed her mom’s breast milk or formula?  The taste might be throwing her off.  
 

LS, how does she do in a swing. Our youngest one, no almost 44, used to be like your GGD and the crank up swing worked like a charm while I was working in the garden.  I also did the back carrier but a. Outlet times I almost tipped him out hill bending down. The swing as safer and I could hang things off it for his amusement. 

Hmmmm. I just don’t know what this plant is, MM.  it looks very familiar to me but……it does look like geranium but wild ones normally have more deeply lobed leaves and lighter weight leaves.  It looks a bit like a mallow species.  Most of them have a pinkish flower but I’m not sure what might be in your area.  
 

I guess we still don’t know enough.  Is it hairy?  It doesn’t appear so in the picture.  is the stem squarish (Mint family has square stems)  or round?  How does the plant grow? From a single root or branched roots? Do the leaves grow from a rosette like base or do they grow from a common stem?  Etc?  
 

There are a number of plant ID webs where you choose a leaf type or other particulars and it takes you to pictures of different plants it could be.  Here’s one from your state but there are lots of others too. 
 

https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/weeds_intro.html  

It must be pretty new as I can’t get it free online.  I just saw that a book club near us is going to be reading it this month.  It should make for interesting discussions, especially if there is a variety of ages. 

Good for you, Becca.  Our weatherman says our weather is a month ahead of normal.  I hope to plant peas and greens this week.  

It is amazing how many plants can be grown in a specific area when the soils is fertile enough.  A master gardener once told me that if a seed packet says to thin to a certain distance you can usually plant that distance if the soil and the seeds are both good. Some seeds I like to over-plant so I can use the thinning.  If I use older seeds I often germinate test them first.  I put ten seeds on a wet paper towel, cover with another and keep them barely moist until they sprout.  Ten makes it easy to figure percentages.  If 8 grow I have 80% germination rate and I adjust the number of seeds I plant by that rate.  Example, 20% more seed than called for. 
 

I usually use the square foot garden guide in my raised beds where I control the fertility .  And my OCD appreciates the uniformity 

4 hours ago, Jeepers said:

It's getting so any more, if you don't grow it, you need to side eye it. 

That is so true even of our American produced foods.  Farmers and producers here are allowed to use chemicals and additives that most other countries have banned and unless there is a complaint, an illness, or one of the random tests shows a problem nothing is done about it.  We could find the same lead or other toxins here as easily or easier than from other countries. 
 

Still another reason for eating as local as possible. 

Can we see pictures of the plant?  And something to give us a size, like a quarter beside the leaf or a ruler?  I’m not sure it IS a clover. 

Euphrasyne.  Those are WONDERFUL,  I am sooooo glad you like to take pictures of your yard.  You should be proud.  Do you follow the Square Foot Garden method for some of those beds?  Do you use the soil mix from that book?  Your plants look so lush.  👍

I, too, have had her on my mind.   I have been .  

I would love to see pictures, Euphrasyne.  I love to see lawns turned into vegetable gardens.  Flowers too.  There is something about a big expanse of bare lawn that seems so sterile.  Vegetables can be beautiful.  I once saw a beautifully landscaped yard in a small town. We stopped to admire it and were invited for a tour.  The owner told us the town required owners had to keep their property ‘neat’. His back yard is all waist high raised beds complete with built in automatic water systems. Some were round but most were eight or ten by four feet. They had mulch walkways between them and were arranged artfully in curved designs. They were full of lush vegetables with edible flowers here and there. Behind that, along an alley, were rows of sweet corn and melons and other vining crops growing on a fence trellis.  One side yard had filled border beds along both the house and the property line with a green lawn of low growing chamomile and other nice sweet smelling herbs. He said he rarely mowed it as it stayed fairly evenly low.  The other side of the house was full of flowers.  It looked like an old English garden and it surrounded one side of a paved eating area with grill and etc set up like an outdoor kitchen. The other side of the patio, close to the back door, had another raised bed full of herbs. The house sat close to the street so the front yard was small but it also contained beds full of flowers.  He told us he raised all the produce his mother and he could use for the year and the neighbors were blessed with the extras.
 

Now I have to tell you in all honesty, the man was a landscaper.  He had all the equipment and wherewithal to set this up but he pointed out that it wasn’t something he did overnight.  He said It took him a few years to get it that way and that most people could do something similar in their own yards. I realllllllly wanted that yard.  We took a ride at least yearly to see his garden but the last time through, after the derecho, we found the storm had hit his yard hard. Several of the raised beds had collapsed, the fence was gone, the plants looked like a giant had trampled them.  I wanted to stop and weep over it all but I figured the owner had enough trouble without finding some crazy woman crying in his yard. I became ill shortly after that and we never went back but someone told me he had rebuilt and replanted.  
 

Still, I am amazed at how many vegetables he could grow in a ‘landscaped’ lawn???  

And that, ladies, is why I live in the country.  Though there ARE county ordinances, we live back in a thousand foot lane where no one sees what we have/do.  We would definitely be in trouble as DH was a ummmmmm collector and has many a piece of equipment setting in the brush on the property, most of it, thankfully hidden as he knows MY ordinances! 

I used a both corded and battery powered electric lawn mowers for years but have to admit I liked the battery one better.  No cord in the way and usually by the time the battery ran down I had too and was ready for a rest. I usually did half the yard at a time.  
 

I would rather have critters mow the yard but if I lived in town I believe I would cut down on the mowing by having more garden beds, either raised or at least defined to look neat.  I know it could be a problem in housing associations but would there be ordinances against that in towns or cites?